Manchester City's billionaire owner wanted to buy into Arsenal

Football's latest billionaire tycoon, Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, met one of Arsenal's two biggest shareholders to consider investing £180million in the north London club earlier this year before turning his attention to Manchester City.

Dr Al Fahim, who led negotiations for the Abu Dhabi United Group's £220m takeover of City, has admitted that he 'looked at' Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle before settling on City.

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And The Mail on Sunday understands that meetings took place with Arsenal stakeholder Alisher Usmanov earlier this year, with a view to buying his 24 per cent holding.

The Abu Dhabi United Group would have had to pay a premium on the shares in order to gain a foothold at Arsenal, but Usmanov was only willing to sell a proportion of his stake, meaning negotiations eventually foundered.

The deal for all Usmanov's shares could have reached £180m and would have made ADUG the biggest shareholders in Arsenal, owning marginally more then director Danny Fiszman.

It would have raised the prospect of Arsenal finally submitting to the glut of international oligarchs who have taken over Premier League clubs in the 21st century, with the club having so far resisted Usmanov's efforts to bankroll transfers and have an input into running the club.

But with Brazilian striker Robinho joining Manchester City from Real Madrid for £32.5m in the immediate aftermath of the ADUG deal, it appears that Arsenal came close to being able to draw on the extraordinary wealth of Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the man behind ADUG.

However, Fiszman and his fellow directors, such as Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, who owns 15.9 per cent of the club, have agreed to offer first refusal on the sale of any shares to each other before selling out to foreign billionaires in a lockdown agreement which extends until 2012.

It means that it would be difficult for any outside tycoon to have a controlling interest in the club. Usmanov, who bought his stake from former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein, had been frozen out by the club's other directors, seemingly due to their antipathy towards Dein.